Ohio Federal Research Network: Industry Sponsored Research/RFI Opportunity Profile

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Contact Katie Watkins for OFRN application materials:  kwatkin@uakron.edu

From: David E Crain [mailto:d.crain@csuohio.edu]   Sent: Friday, February 02, 2018 2:47 PM         To: David E Crain
Cc: Aaron Bates (apbates1@gmail.com); Dennis Andersh; Jack N Kraszewski; James Gates – UTC; Mark Hartel (mark_hartel@yahoo.com); Martin P. Kress (kress.83@osu.edu); Paul Jackson – WSU; Stan Prybyla (stan.prybyla@breakthrough-technology.com); Dave Nestic (dave@neztechcorp.com)
Subject: OFRN Research Opportunity – Multimodal Neuroimaging  Importance: High

I’m pleased to send you a new Industry Research opportunity, this time from Dayton  area company Santa Fe Neurosciences.  Sante Fe is interested in more accurately portraying the effectiveness of transcranial electrical stimulation via multimodal neuroimaging and ultralow field MRI.  Details are attached in the OFRN Opportunity Profile.

We are considering this opportunity an RFI given the lack of a stated budget. However, Sante Fe has indicated a high level of interest in this project and we feel there is a good chance of funded research and/or a development partnership coming out of this if a mutual fit is found.

If this opportunity is of interest to you, please:

  1. Reply to this E-mail to let me know your intent to respond;
  2. Complete the attached response template and return to me no later than 2/16/18 so we may respond to Sante Fe in a timely manner. Please contact me directly if you intend to respond, but need more time;

If you have any questions, comments or feedback on either this opportunity or our overall process, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Thank you for your time and I hope you find this of interest.

Dave Crain, Director – Innovation Development, Ohio Federal Research Network–C&WD Support, Cleveland State Universitgy, 216-687-5198; 330-620-3855 (c) d.crain@csuohio.edu 

Industry Sponsored Research/RFI Opportunity Profile    Describe your research need and the technology specialties involved. How critical is this project to your company? What level of privacy/secrecy is required? May we include your company name in our outreach within the Ohio Research University network?
OVERVIEW: Transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) is used to influence brain activity to enhance cognition, accelerate recovery of function after injury, and treat psychiatric disease. Across the field of noninvasive electrical brain stimulation there is heated debate about the amount and effectiveness of electricity passed through the scalp and into the brain during tES.

EXPECTED OUTCOME: The desired product would combine ultralow field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to collect brain anatomy, electrical field distribution (using magnetic resonance electrical impedance tomography [MREIT]), and positron emission tomography (PET) to quantify brain metabolism. The combination of anatomy from MRI, electric field distribution from MRIET, and metabolic activity from PET will allow us to understand the where the electric field intersect with changes to brain metabolism. The locations where the electric field and metabolic changes overlap represent locations where the tES can be said to have primary effects on the activity of the brain tissue. In regions where there are changes to brain activity but no overlap with the electric field, the effects of tES will be considered secondary. A multimodal imaging method, like that proposed, is critical to understand how and where tES affects brain activity and how tES might be targeted for maximum effectiveness in enhancing cognition, recovery of function, and treatments for psychiatric disease.

PROJECT: This project would be a collaboration between Santa Fe Neurosciences, experts in tES, and FMI Dayton, experts in PET. We seek expertise in multimodal neuroimaging and ultralow field MRI. This combination of technologies would provide not only unprecedented insights to the workings of tES in the brain but also has numerous other applications. The combination of simultaneous quantitative ultralow field MRI and PET would dramatically simplify co-registration of the MRI and PET data and would have immediate applications in tumor identification. At present there are no commercial ultralow field MRI devices. The development of a device would be a giant leap forward in multimodal neuroimaging where a single co-registered anatomical and metabolic dataset could be collected during a single exam with a single device. This device could be commercialized through Santa Fe Neurosciences, FMI Dayton, or a spin off company.

What are your goals and objectives for the project? What deliverables do you envision? Please be specific.  Our goal is to obtain an ultralow field MRI device that could be integrated with PET and tES to gather a combined anatomical and metabolic data set of brain and other tissues in a single exam using a single device.

What date do you need the research successfully completed by?
12/31/20

What is your budget for this project? If RFI, indicated anticipated budget, if known.

To be determined.

Describe any in-kind support you envision being made available. Examples in-kind support include contribution of goods, services or facilities such as raw materials, unique testing, analysis, and/or processing equipment, use of specialized (i.e. environmental, structural, electrical, etc.) test facilities, or use of research/engineering personnel.

Santa Fe Neurosciences can provide tES equipment and expertise for testing in combination with ultralow field MRI. FMI Dayton can provide MRI-compatible PET equipment, isotopes, and expertise for testing the viability of an integrated PET-ultralow field MRI system.

Industry Research Opportunity Response Template

Please describe your technical expertise and proficiencies critical to the client’s problem statement via researcher/SME CVs, publications, relevant experience, etc.  Also, please provide information on “hands on” personnel (graduate students, researchers, and post-docs) you would anticipate being directly involved with the proposed effort.

 

Successful completion of these projects, on time and on budget, are critical success factors for our industrial partners.  Please document your approach to completing this project within client parameters.

 

Please provide a budgetary estimate, with narrative, you feel is required to complete this project.  At a minimum, indicate the total financial investment required, along with support subcategory totals (personnel, materials, computing, overhead, etc.).

 

How realistic are the client’s technical goals/objectives within their stated timeframe?  What timeframe or deliverable changes, if any, do you feel are necessary to be successful?  Please be specific.

 

Describe the equipment and facilities you would anticipate using in this research and how they will support a successful project. If the client has indicated that they will offer “in kind” support in the way of manpower, test facilities, etc, please detail how you would integrate them into the proposed project.

 

Would you anticipate involving any other universities or external partners (including businesses other than the client) on this project?  If so, please identify them with a short description of the role you would see them playing, including % of effort.

 

 

Please provide additional information you feel will strengthen your response.